August preliminary injunction<\/a> issued by District Judge Kathleen Williams effectively requiring the site to be shut down was an overreach because it subjected Florida to federal laws that did not apply. The state, they say, cannot be subject to the National Environmental Policy Act.<\/p>\nState lawyers said the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, where the detention center was built last year in a matter of days, is subject to state rules and can be used for whatever the state considers necessary. Even if the state hypothetically did secure federal funding, that did not mean the facility\u2019s hasty construction violated federal environmental law.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with funding under the major federal action definition, I don\u2019t think that would qualify, because they haven\u2019t shown federal control,\u201d said Jesse Panucci, the lawyer for the state. \u201cThis is still a state facility under state control.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawyer for the federal government said there had been no \u201cformal commitment to fund this project\u201d when part of the airstrip was transformed into a tent city. They repeated previous statements that any funding would not be for construction but for per diem expenses for housing detainees.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the conservation groups and the Miccosukee Tribe faced tough questions from the panel about whether the lower court\u2019s preliminary injunction \u2014 which they hope the appellate court will reinstate \u2014 conflicts with the Secretary of Homeland Security\u2019s duties regarding immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
Judge Pryor said the federal laws that govern immigration detention restrict federal courts from interfering \u201cwhen the Secretary has decided on the place to detain immigrants,\u201d especially in actions like environmental review as required by NEPA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this injunction is doing is restraining the operation of that which the Supreme Court says, regardless of the claim, doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Pryor said.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the environmental groups argued that the detention site is operated under an agreement with the federal government, and detainees are considered subjects of the federal government, not the state. They said that should make the facility\u2019s construction subject to federal law.<\/p>\n
Pryor, who was appointed to the bench in 2004 by President George W. Bush, pushed back, saying that the state controls the site and could use it for multiple purposes, including immigration or hurricane relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have the control. They can use it as an immigration facility. They can use it for helicopter training. They could relinquish it to the county. They control it,\u201d Pryor responded.<\/p>\n
Paul Schwiep, the lawyer for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, countered that Florida could change its mind on the project, but the facility was propped up to serve a federal function on immigration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis facility would not exist but for immigration enforcement. The federal government has outsourced immigration detention to the state of Florida,\u201d Schwiep told the panel.<\/p>\n
Judge Nancy Abudu, a Joe Biden appointee on the panel, asked whether the application of the law differed when the standard applied to the detainees held at the facility under federal authority versus the construction of the site, which was a state prerogative.<\/p>\n
Judge Abudu hinted at the detainees themselves as a sign of federal control within the facility, implying they would be subject to federal law. She agreed with her colleagues on the bench that the state could always change its mind in holding them.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a state decides it\u2019s going to do something that triggers federal law, it can always decide it doesn\u2019t want to do that, but once it does decide to do that, it has to comply with federal law,\u201d Abudu said. \u201cI\u2019m not hearing anything from either side that says that that is not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is no timeline for when the appellate judges will rule.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published April 7, 2026 at 7:02 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Signage outside Alligator Alcatraz on Sunday, August 17, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. D.A. Varela dvarela@miamiherald.com The question of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-222761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Signage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIA_3DAV_INTERFAITH_ALCATRAZ.JPG\" "\\"Signage")
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